FEBRUARY 5--A Connecticut man has pleaded guilty to participating in a
coordinated online attack on Kiss frontman Gene Simmons, whose web sites were targeted in retaliation for comments the rock star made about Internet piracy.

The October 2010 denial of service attack against genesimmons.com and
two other sites--which were knocked offline--was spearheaded by the
online collective “Anonymous,” which dubbed its Simmons assault
“Operation Payback.”

The musician, 63, upset “Anonymous” and
its various sympathizers when he advised entertainment industry figures
to “sue everybody, take their houses, their cars. The music industry was
asleep at the wheel and didn't have the balls to sue every
freckle-faced kid who downloaded tracks.”

The FBI opened a
criminal probe after a Simmons lawyer, Barry Mallen, reported the denial
of service attack to federal investigators.

During a hearing
last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Kevin George Poe, 25,
pleaded guilty to his role in the Simmons attack. Poe, known online as
“spydr101,” copped to a misdemeanor count of unauthorized impairment of a
protected computer. FBI agents determined that Poe’s computer swamped
the genesimmons.com web site with 69,000 requests during the denial of
service attack.

Poe, pictured in the above mug shot, was
originally indicted last year on two felony charges--conspiracy and
computer impairment--that carried a combined maximum of 15 years in
prison. However, as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, Poe was
named in a superseding criminal information that only charged him with
the reduced impairment count.

The plea deal notes that
prosecutors will not oppose Poe’s request at sentencing--set for June
10--that he receive probation instead of incarceration. Government
lawyers could, however, ask that a probation term include a maximum of
six months of home detention. The misdemeanor to which Poe pleaded
carries a maximum one-year prison term.

While Poe’s indictment
alleges that he conspired with “others known and unknown” to a federal
grand jury, Poe appears to be the only individual charged with
participating in the Simmons attack.

The only other suspect to
be identified was a Washington State boy whose home was searched by FBI
agents in April 2011. The high school student, who was 15 when his
residence was raided, was a 4chan habitué whose Facebook page carried
the nickname “herpderpity” and listed “Trolling” as the teen’s favorite
sport.